A horse is generally feed-restricted or hand-fed at least twice per day due to its small stomach size relative to its large body mass. Feeding a horse in an unrestricted or "ad libitum" fashion often results in colic, founder, azoturia and other digestive related problems. To avoid such problems, even complete horse rations containing roughage must be carefully hand-fed. Manual feeding is often time consuming and costly, especially for owners of pleasure horses.
It is known in the prior art to produce horse feeds for high performance horses which have compositions exhibiting good palatability, improved digestibility and high carbohydrate content for increased energy. Such feeds are described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,946,115 to Brever et al, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,166,867 and 4,197,320 to Betz et al. These patents, however, generally describe rations which are designed merely to supplement an existing diet; they are not suitable for use in "free choice" or ad libitum feeding. Moreover, while feed intake limiting compositions have been described for ruminants, e.g., in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,197,319 and 4,230,736 to Betz et al, such compositions are merely dietary supplements which cannot be used for horses. This is because the ruminant digestive system differs substantially from the equine digestive system. Moreover, such ruminant compositions typically restrict feeding through ingredient excess or chemical additives, and these techniques cannot be safely applied to horses.
There is therefore a need for a feed intake limiting composition for use in ad libitum horse feeding which prevents colic, founder and other digestive disorders and which may be fed as a substantially complete ration without supplementation.